LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 
jfapKT @*W«# ^i^-1- 

Shelf M-fe 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. I 



GOD AND THE BIBLE: 



jFuniamnttal principles 33rieflg Stated 

IN ANSWER TO 

SPECIAL QUESTIONS PUT FORTH BY THE 
"BOSTON INVESTIGATOR." 



GEORGE H. EMERSON, D.D. 



^VJVX 



f 



BOSTON: 

UNIVERSALIST PUBLISHING HOUSE. V*-" 

1892. 



^ 






Copyright, 1892, 
By the Universalist Publishing House. 



Bg tije Sams author. 



The Doctrine of Probation Examined. 

i6mo, 175 pages, 50 cents. 

The Bible and Modern Thought. 

121x10, 165 pages, 50 cents net. 




John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



PEEFACE 



'TVEE pages which follow are in substance, 
and mainly in form, a compilation of a 
few editorial articles which appeared in "The 
Christian Leader" in the spring months of 1892. 
The introductory chapter will explain their oc- 
casion and special purpose. They are now 
printed in book form, in the belief that they 
may meet the needs of those who are as yet not 
distinctly informed in regard to the basal prin- 
ciples of Theism and the Scriptures, as these 
are now held by later thinkers and scholars. 
The effort has been to put the several state- 
ments into as intelligible a form as the subject 
matter will permit. The few changes in the 
text consist in eliminating, as far as practicable, 
the peculiarities incident to their serial charac- 



Preface, 



ter, though it is hardly possible or desirable to 
mask their editorial quality. It is hoped that in 
the convenient form in which the essays now 
appear they may reach a new class of readers, 
and so, to the extent in which they reveal truth, 
be of service to serious and inquiring minds. 

G. H. E. 

Boston, June, 1892. 



COMTEK T S. 



Page 

Introductory 7 

I- What the word " God " does not mean 13 

II. What we do mean by the word " God " 20 

III. God as He is, and as He is appre- 

hended 26 

IV. What do we mean by the words 

u Our Father in Heaven" ? . . 33 

V. The Bible as the "Word of God" 39 

VI. How the Bible came from God . . 47 
VII. What does it matter who wrote the 

Books of the Bible? 53 



GOD AND THE BIBLE. 



INTRODUCTORY. 
AN "OPEN LETTER" AND AN OPPORTUNITY. 

THE "Boston Investigator" of Wednesday, 
March 9, contained " An Open Letter to 
the Clergymen of Boston," signed ;; Lemuel 
K. Washburn, Editor of the ' Boston Investiga- 
tor.' " It called upon the clergy to answer cer- 
tain questions, — such as " What do you mean 
by the word 'God'?" What "idea" do you 
mean to convey by the word ? How do you 
know that there is a God ? What is meant by 
the phrase " Father in heaven ? " In reference 
to the " bible " general questions are put, as to 
its authorship, its authority as God's word, what 
makes it God's word, and so on. 

The following is the " Open Letter " in full : 



8 God and the Bible. 

Gentlemen, — You, as Christian preachers and 
teachers, make use of the word " God." What do 
you mean by this word ? What idea do you wish 
to convey to the mind when you speak the word 
" God" ? The word has no meaning to me, and I 
am unable to comprehend what the word stands for. 
I am willing to be enlightened, and ask you to tell 
me exactly what you mean b c y the word " God." 

How do you know that there is a God ? What 
has convinced you of the existence of God ? T have 
no knowledge of God, I have not seen anything that 
I should call God, I have not found anything to 
which I should give the name of God. I want to 
know what you have found ; what you have seen or 
heard or experienced, that convinces you that there 
is a God. You address God as though you were 
familiar with him, as though he could see and hear 
you. You pray to him and ask favors of him, as 
though he had power to answer } T our prayers. You 
call him u Father," and use terms of affection when 
addressing him, as you would in speaking to an 
earthly parent. In fact, you employ the word in a 
way that implies that you know to whom }^ou are 
speaking. Now, all this is outside of and beyond 
my experience, and I ask you to tell me what facts 
} T ou possess that warrant you in addressing God as 
a being who can see and hear, who can answer the 
pra} T ers of men, and who is pleased to be called 
" Father" by the children of men. 

You use the expression " Father in heaven" when 



Introductory. 



speaking to God, thus implying that God dwells in 
heaven. Where is this dwelling-place of God ? 
How do you know that there is a heaven in which 
God dwells ? Have 3'ou any knowledge about this 
place ? Have you seen any one who has been there, 
and who has told where heaven is ? If you know 
where this place is, will }'ou tell me? I have heard 
of no such place on earth, no such place in the skies, 
no such place anywhere. Where is heaven? 

I wish to be perfectly frank with you, and I wish 
you to be perfectly frank with me. I do not know 
any being, person, or thing, that I can honestly call 
God. I look over the earth and see mountains, 
meadows, and streams ; trees, grass, and flowers ; 
beasts, birds, and men. I look into the heavens, 
and by day I see the blue sk}-, the many-hued clouds, 
and the golden sun, and by night the myriad twink- 
ling stars and the* white moon. I look among all 
that live and move, but I do not see God. Now, 
you speak of God and to God as though }'ou were 
speaking to and of a person, — a being with parts 
and passions and powers similar to man ; a being with 
bodily organs or bodily powers ; a being whose exist- 
ence you ought to be able to demonstrate. I ask you 
for the proof of the existence of your God. I do 
not saj T that the universe has no Gocl ; I simply say I 
am unable to find God. I therefore ask you who 
teach men that there is a God, to help me find him. 

You also speak of a book called the bible as the 
" word of God." How do you know the bible is the 



10 God and the Bible. 

u word of God" ? I have read this book carefully, 
and I have not discovered anything in it that is not 
the word of man. What makes the bible the "word 
of God" ? Is it what the book contains, or is it its 
authorship ? Is all the bible divine, or only a part 
of it ? What constitutes the divinity of this book ? 

Did God write the bible, or dictate it, or make it 
divine after it was written ? I am unable to under- 
stand what is meant by a "word of God." I can- 
not understand what a u word of God " is. Such 
an expression is meaningless to my mind, and I ask 
you to tell me what makes the bible the " word of 
God." 

Now, gentlemen, I have addressed you seriously, 
and I hope you will treat my letter seriously. Con- 
vince me that there is a God, and that the bible is 
the " word of God ; " show me that God exists, and 
that he is the author of the bible, and I will join you 
in teaching these things. I promise to print what- 
ever you write in answer to my letter in the " In- 
vestigator." Your answers will be read by a good 
many thousand freethinkers, — by men and women 
who are as much in the dark about God as I am. and 
who are as willing to be enlightened. I offer }'ou 
the opportunity to address the infidels of the United 
States, and to convert as many of them as you can. 

The opportunity thus voluntarily given ought 
to be met. Some representative of the " Boston 
clergy " should see in it " a call." The letter is 



Introductory. 11 



respectful ; is evidently written in good faith ; 
and it is certainly an " open door," — the opened 
door that seldom opens, — for reaching a large 
number of persons who otherwise are not likely 
to be informed in regard to the vital questions 
submitted, — informed, we should explain, in re- 
gard to the ideas which Theistic writers are 
accustomed to present and urge. The promise 
was without conditions or limitations, — to print 
in the "Investigator" "whatever" the "Boston 
clergy " might write. The editor certainly made 
a generous offer. 

As we read the " Open Letter " we found our- 
selves moved to answer, as well as we might be 
able to do, its several questions, in a few edito- 
rial articles in the " Christian Leader." In so 
doing we did not assume that we put the editor 
of the " Investigator " under any obligations to 
reprint our statements ; for we presumed he 
meant that he would print what was specially 
written for his paper, though he did not for- 
mally make such condition. 

It will be seen that the Letter lays out con- 
siderable work. Only octavos — many of them 
— can give comprehensive particulars, with the 
needful explanations. With the most rigid con- 



12 God and the Bible. 

densations an attempt to answer must overflow- 
newspaper columns. But as briefly as we may 
be able to express our thought we propose, in a 
few articles, to meet every salient point urged in 
the Letter. As we analyze it, seven particulars 
may be " differentiated," as follows : — 

1. The meaning of, the idea intended to be 
conveyed by, the word " God." 

2. The facts, the " experience," whereof the 
existence of God is affirmed. 

3. The reasons for addressing God as "Father." 

4. The significance of "Father in heaven," — 
that is, of heaven as God's dwelling-place. 

5. The significance of the "bible" as the 
" word of God," — what makes the " bible " 
God's word. 

6. How the "bible" came from God, — the 
process of its authorship. 

7. What does it matter who wrote the Biblical 
books, or when they were written ? 

In the essays which follow, the topics will be 
considered, not in every particular, nor in the 
exact phraseology, but substantially in the order 
above outlined. 



WHAT THE WORD "GOD" DOES NOT 

MEAN. 

IN accordance with a promise, and after the 
manner outlined in the Introduction, we 
here make our first essay in answer to certain 
questions put forth by the editor of the " Boston 
Investigator," in an " Open Letter " to the 
clergymen of Boston. 

First in the order, and also first in the order 
of the general subject, we are to answer sub- 
stantially this question : u What do we mean by 
the word ' God,' — what ' image ' do we have in 
mind as we make use of the word ? " 

It is unmistakable that the editor who puts 
this question to the Boston clergymen — ■ the 
tenor of his letter makes it unmistakable — has 
an expectation that a pertinent answer will at 
least attempt to describe something akin to a 
physical presence. The " image " must, as mat- 
ter of course, be tangible ; so he evidently im- 
plies. The word " Caesar," he will say, at once 
evokes an image for the sight, — one having 



14 Grod and the Bible. 

height, width, and a definite bodily form; one 
that can be weighed, measured, handled. Now, 
what image is there in our minds, at all analo- 
gous to these sensible qualities, when we speak 
of or pray to God ? 

At the outset let us answer: Nothing what- 
ever! Not so much as the shadow of any one 
of the particulars named, or of one at all akin 
thereto, has part or lot in the " image " evoked 
in our minds when we thoughtfully speak the 
word " God." We safely add that in this un- 
qualified negative we may assume to speak for 
every Theistic divine or authority on either side 
of the great ocean. 

On the supposition that we must so define our 
thought of God as to present a tangible or sensi- 
ble image, — one having form, organism, parts, 
and passions, — we have no option but to con- 
fess failure, and retire in humiliation from the 
field. On the supposition that the image is 
either what the editor who puts the questions 
implies that it must be, or else that it is 
simply nothing, we can but frankly and un- 
qualifiedly say : Then it is nothing, and we 
surrender our cause before we even begin its 
defence. It would be some satisfaction to us, 



What the word " Grod " does not Mean. 15 

it would be a " clearing of the air," if we could 
be permitted to say to all the readers of the 
" Investigator : " " Gentlemen, if your editor has 
got the only conceivable idea of God — the one 
upon which the argument for His existence 
must stand or fall — we Theists make an ' un- 
conditional surrender.' Forced to concede so 
much there does not remain so much as a fibre 
of a plank upon which we can stand." 

If now we have any readers to whom this 
concession seems fatal, and who mav therefore 
be tempted to withdraw their attention from 
what we purpose to proffer, we beg of them to 
follow us at least one step ; for in the next step 
we expect to show that our concession is no con- 
cession at all, but on the contrary a willing and 
needful sloughing of what in fact is but a coarse 
incumbrance. We expect to show that our 
meaning when we use the word " God," when we 
speak of the " image " which the word calls up, 
is most real, distinct, and for not a few self- 
convincing. 

Let us return to the image of Caesar. Of 
course when we use the word Caesar the image 
that arises includes his body, — his physical 
endowments and organs. But these corporeal 



16 God and the Bible. 

particulars are simply included, — included as 
incidents, accompaniments, often accidents, and 
included because, he having had a body, asso- 
ciation links him therewith. But the essential 
Caesar contains nothing within the scope of any 
of our physical senses. That which the lean 
and hungry Cassius struck, which the envious 
Casca stabbed, over which Mark Antony spoke 
his touching but artful oration, — was that 
Caesar? The question takes with it the only 
possible answer. Yet every particle of what 
went with the name of Caesar as a thing of sight 
was there, after the assassination as before. In 
the sense in which it could be truly said that he 
was tangibly seen in his life, he could be not 
less distinctly and tangibly seen as in death he 
lay at the base of Pompey's pillar. It is in the 
very terms of our statement, the complete accu- 
racy of which will not be called in question, that 
the real Caesar was never physically seen. The 
real Caesar was a mind, a will, manifesting cer- 
tain actions by means of corporeal organs. But 
to call those organs that mind or will would be 
akin to attributing vision to a telescope or loco- 
motive powers to a crutch. 

Just here certain related ideas may spring up. 



What the word "God " does not Mean. 17 

which, while wholly distinct and different, the 
haste of rhetoric sometimes confuses. Let these 
be briefly stated, that we may not wantonly con- 
fuse them. 

There is a school of philosophers who affirm 
that what we call mind and will, with all the 
mental moods, and the actions resulting there- 
from, are simply results of a physical organ- 
ism, — they are but forms of molecular changes; 
they are " cellular tissues " in certain states and 
movements. When the body dies it is not that 
mind and will lose a physical apparatus ; they 
themselves cease to be. The technical name 
given to these philosophers, one to which they 
make no objection, is that of materialists. Were 
this the matter in immediate discussion we 
should, in all probability, be found on one side, 
and our contemporary of the " Investigator " 
on the other side. But for the immediate pur- 
pose, and " for the sake of the argument," we 
may concede the materialistic position, — though 
we should stoutly resist it were it the matter 
really under consideration. From the position 
or belief provisionally conceded, it follows that 
immediately after the successful work of the 

conspirators there was no Caesar. The instant 

2 



18 God and the Bible* 

his Heart ceased to beat, Caesar himself was a 
nonentity. But there, at the base of the Pom- 
peian shaft, was all that any one had ever seen 
of Caesar. It matters not, for the end now in 
view, what may be our theory of life and of its 
relations to a perishable physical frame ; it yet 
remains that it — the life, with its mind, con- 
science, will, mental manifestation — is never 
an object of sight. The essential image, there- 
fore, raised by the word Caesar has in it no 
quality that any or all of the physical senses 
can apprehend. 

If now we substitute for the word " Caesar " 
the word " God," every vital point that we have 
sought to explain is equally applicable. The 
evangelist reports Jesus as saying, " God is a 
spirit." What this positively means may be 
matter of opinion. What it excludes can give 
occasion for but one judgment ; it excludes cor- 
poreality. It excludes the notion of an image of 
form, parts, organism. Is this a virtual surren- 
der of the point under examination, — namely, 
that because God cannot be tangibly apprehended 
therefore He is not ? Why does this hold of God 
any more than of the " foremost man in all the 
world" in conquest and statesmanship ? We all 



What the word "Grod " does not Mean. 19 

have an image of the great Julius with the acci- 
dents or incidents of bodily form in space. Why 
not as easily have an image of God minus the 
accidents or incidents of physical accompani- 
ments ? 

We have shown or tried to show what we do 
not mean, what " image " is not raised, by the 
word " God." But w r hat do we mean by the 
word ? We will try to answer this question in 
the next essay. 



II. 



WHAT WE DO MEAN BY THE WORD 

" GOD." 

WE have attempted to make intelligible 
what we do not mean, what image we 
do not call up, by the word " God." Let us now 
make an attempt at showing what our meaning 
positively fc, — what the corresponding image. 

It is our desire to stick closely to our " text." 
We are called upon to describe our Theistic 
meaning, not to give an argument in main- 
tenance of our belief, except so far as an 
intelligible definition must include certain par- 
ticulars of the argument. We surrender our 
whole case on the supposition that we are log- 
ically compelled to include a single physical 
particular in the thought of God. Can we have 
a meaning, a meaning to which some " image " 
corresponds, in a thought of God which excludes 
all that pertains to any of our bodily senses ? 
We apprehend no difficulty in submitting to 
this question an affirmative answer. 



What we do mean hy the word " GrodP 21 

Matthew Arnold attempted to formulate a 
thought which it would seem must be assented 
to as a veritable fact by all who are competent 
to take in the meaning of his words, — a state- 
ment which, though it approached the verge of 
Atheism, vet remained on the Theistic side of 
the line. His formula has got to be a classic in 
English literature : " There is a Something not 
ourselves which makes for righteousness." At 
times he modifies the formula, bringing it fur- 
ther within the Theistic domain, and speaks of 
the " Eternal " as making for righteousness. He 
even calls it the " intuition of God/' But it is 
conceivable that one may dispute the verity of 
the " Eternal," and yet more that of the " intu- 
ition." But a moral being with his eyes open 
must at least assent to the most generic of all 
Theistic statements, — that of a " Something not 
ourselves that makes for righteousness." If 
in this we are not too confident, have we not 
the " image " of reality in that righteousness- 
inducing " Something " ? If now we add to that 
" Something " such qualities or attributes as 
justice, beneficence, purpose, power, will, does 
not the image grow in distinctness and com- 
pleteness ? Yet again, if we add to all, the 



22 Grod and the Bible. 

unifying quality of personality — if we raise this 
"Something" to the dignity of conscious Being 
— is not the image yet more vivid ? Once more 
again, if we add to all, the crowning quality of 
Fatherhood, does not the image already vivid 
become unspeakably tender ? Let no one accuse 
us here of begging the question, — of assuming 
the existence of God with all the attributes 
specialized. We are doing nothing of the kind. 
We are simply attempting to show that such & 
Being, even if only a supposititious one, readily 
comes before us as a veritable " image." Though 
divested of corporeality it is a " Something " 
having identity. It can be conceived. Let us 
add that the terms of our comprehensive suppo- 
sition describe exactly what we " mean by the 
word ' God.' " 

The apostle says : " The things that are seen 
are temporal ; the things that are not seen are 
eternal." There is no need of asking any one 
to believe this because the apostle affirms it. 
The truth is self-evidenced. No sense appre- 
hends gravity. The word evokes no material 
image. But the thing is more real than the 
rocks which it holds and swings in space. The 
rocks which we see crumble to dust; gravity 



What we do mean by the word " Grod" 23 

ever endures. Yet no one says : " I never meet 
with this thing you call gravity ; I have no 
image thereof ; who will tell me what it means?" 
Who that has a kindly heart, one that feels for 
another's woe, ever questions the reality, the 
solidity of love ? Yet eye hath not seen it nor 
ear heard it. To the physical sense it is but 
vocalized breath. But the image thereof is most 
vivid in all beneficent minds. No one sees occa- 
sion to ask, " What do you mean by the word 
'love' ?" So of every moral, intellectual — may 
we not add, spiritual? — word. We neither 
handle, touch, nor taste any one. But they are 
ever enduring; they are in human lives and 
conduct but reflections of the " Something that 
makes for righteousness." 

The particular question that has led us to 
these statements necessarily drives us to ab- 
stractions, for which we know most readers 
have little relish, and in reference to which they 
often manifest no little impatience. . May we 
however now attempt something in the "con- 
crete," — the more popular and intelligible, 
though somewhat cumbrous form of definition ? 
We look first of all at the solar system, and 
note the regularity and order with which the 



24 Cf-od and the Bible. 

planetary orbs move on in their appointed paths. 
" Appointed " ? If so, mind and purpose must 
have appointed. We see that certain beneficent 
results are brought about. " Beneficent " ? Then 
the appointing intelligence must be beneficent. 
Looking simply at the phenomena of the globe 
upon which we dwell, we everywhere note adap- 
tation. "Adaptation"? Only a thinking force 
can make an adaptation. It seems to be a first 
principle that creative acts must first exist as 
creative thoughts. 

Yet again, — and now we rise to a higher and 
diviner tier in our meditation,— we have as cer- 
tain a knowledge of our accountability as we 
have of our existence. There is that within us 
which for one act gives a sense of approval, and 
for the opposite act a sense of rebuke. Moral 
law enfolds us. It is in the nature of conscience 
to hear, not simply a request, an entreaty, but a 
command. 

It is often said that no man is an Atheist, for 
the reason that it is morally and psychologically 
impossible that he should be. The saying is not 
meant as an impeachment of the sincerity of 
those who avow themselves to be Atheists. The 
meaning is that the intellectual and moral con- 



What we do mean by the word " Grod." 25 

stitution of man holds him to the acknowledg- 
ment of a higher and authoritative Power, the 
same as, despite himself, he cannot get out of 
the relations of time and space. The binding 
force of conscience is an example in point. It 
asks the question, not to what, but " To whom 
are we responsible ? " We might as well think 
of disentangling ourselves from the toils of 
gravity as to fancy that we can even think our- 
selves as living apart from this moral law that 
by simplest definition holds us to that " Some- 
thing not ourselves that," not simply " makes 
for," but commands " righteousness." 

We find ourselves arguing the question, but 
only so far as definition must include argument. 
We regret that we cannot speak for all ; we 
know we do for many — we think for the most 
of mankind — when we say that the " image" 
naturally raised by the terms of our statement 
is most clear and vivid. To us it has a majesty 
that both awes and wins. 



III. 

GOD AS HE IS, AND AS HE IS 
APPREHENDED. 

TT/'E have attempted to tell, in a few great 
V V particulars, what we mean by the word 
" God." The answer may come from a certain 
class of readers : " Yes, you have told what you 
mean by that word ; but unfortunately your 
meaning is nmlike the meaning which others 
attach thereto ; and what satisfaction is it, how 
can it help us, to find that if there is a God no 
two persons exactly agree as to what He is ? If 
we waive the smaller differences, what can we 
make out of those which are so large and serious 
that they give, even in the Christian world, to 
go no farther, occasion for a multitude of dis- 
cordant sects ? Episcopalian, Catholic, Congre- 
gationalism Methodist, Unitarian, Baptist, have 
their sole excuse for being in the single bottom 
fact that each has a different God from every 
other. Of what use to ask us to believe in a 
God unless we can have more definite informa- 
tion in regard to Him ? " We make no doubt 



Grod as he is, and as he is apprehended. 27 

but that we have serious occasion for disbelief 
in what are thought to be disagreements on the 
part of believers. Let us see if the matter is 
as serious as not a few regard it. 

We must at the outset remind those who urge 
the objection under consideration, that if be- 
lievers in a God are as deep in the mud of diffi- 
culty as they assume, disbelievers are quite as 
far sunk in the same kind of mire. Perhaps the 
ablest book of the many written to defend the 
tenets of Atheism is "The System of Nature," 
by the French encyclopaedist, Baron d'Holbach. 
Meaning by nature the universe of matter as we 
behold it, with its modes of phenomena which 
are called the Laws of Nature, this thoughtful 
and plausible Frenchman wrote at length to 
show that it — Systematic Nature — accounts 
for all that we see, and all that has happened in 
history, without any need of a God back of 
and over it. For our present purpose we may 
concede that the brilliant French author had the 
right of it. What we are concerned, however, to 
note is that he conceded, in fact, assumed, — as 
of course he must have done, — at least the 
reality of the System of Nature. It is a fact 
that nature in itself, without any regard to the 



28 God and the Bible. 

question of its origin, or of an intelligent super- 
vision of its movements, is the great field of 
science. The vast mind of Francis Bacon made 
it and its phenomena his theme, and if Macaulay 
does him no more than justice, nearly all the 
modern sciences are the outcome. Astronomy, 
geology, climatology, ethnology, botany, and so 
on, — -the catalogue is a long one, — all deal with 
Nature, and as such the sciences have nothing to 
do with primitive or final causes, with any ques- 
tion of creation or of personal governorship. 

Nature then is; so much is unmistakable 
fact. The Atheist loves to reiterate, " So much 
is unmistakable fact." But if Nature is, how 
happens it that no two persons are agreed as to 
what it is ? To repeat the exact words with 
which the unbeliever confronts our belief in a 
God, simply substituting the word " Nature " in 
the place of " God," " What satisfaction is it, how , 
can it help us, to find that if there is a Nature, 
no two persons exactly agree as to what it is ? " 
Those who are familiar with Grote's sketches of 
the Greek philosophers will remember that 
Thales, Pythagoras, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, 
all represent so many different opinions as to 
what Nature is. And so all the way down. All 



Crod as he is, and as he is apprehended. 29 

agreeing — of course they were all rationally com- 
pelled to agree — that Nature is, and all holding 
to more or less of the same particulars in regard 
to the evolution thereof, yet every one has a 
peculiar opinion in regard to it. Legion is the 
name of the theories in regard to this, that, and 
the other manifestation of Nature. The scien- 
tific world in dealing with Nature is rent with 
sects and creeds in regard to one phase or an- 
other of the great reality. The Nature of Co- 
pernicus, of Galileo, of La Place, of Sir Isaac 
Newton is, in salient regards, peculiar with each. 
Why, ask any expert and he will tell you that 
any text-book of chemistry, or even of mineralogy, 
twenty years old is worthless. The teacher of 
to-day pays no heed to what was taught a genera- 
tion ago. Even the technicalities have been dis- 
carded. The great Agassiz died with passionate 
hostility to Darwin as a charlatan; while the 
latter set aside the former as effete. 

We wish to make distinct to the eye, hoping 
thereby to impress the fact upon the intelligence 
of every reader, this statement : Differences of 
opinion among Theists as to what God is are in 
number and virulence excelled by differences of 
opinion as to what Nature, is. So far, then, as 



30 Grod and the Bible. 

regard is had to differences of judgment, of inter- 
pretation, of creed, of sect, Theists and Atheists 
are in the same boat, — they must sink or sail 
together. The " objection " thought to be in- 
volved is exactly the same against the one as 
against the other. Simply making convertible 
the words " Nature " and " God," the " difficul- 
ties " are identical with both parties. In fact the 
" objections " and the " difficulties " are wholly 
imaginary. To the candid mind they disappear 
on the simplest explanation. 

Scientists and Religionists, believers in God 
and believers in Nature as the first fact, are all 
compelled to recognize this most practical dis- 
tinction : Truth as the thing to be learned is one 
thing ; the human faculties as the means of 
learning thereof are a different thing; the Truth 
is firm and inflexible, — the same yesterday, 
to-day and forever; the faculties are variable 
and , progressive. Truth is the same whether 
looked at by a Plato or Hottentot; but in the 
two cases how different the gaze ! How portly, 
courtly, majestic, commanding is Washington 
seen through pure glass and an unclouded atmos- 
phere. Looked at through a wrinkled plate 
with a smoked surface how grotesque ! Yet no 



Giod as he is, and as he is apprehended. 31 

distorting mirror can hide the identity of that 
presence, no matter how grossly it may distort 
the features. Though out of shape, the mien 
defaced, the majesty made hideous, still the 
Washington is there. In the rogues' gallery 
will be found features in all manner of comical 
disfigurements. The convict does his best to 
hide his personality. He thrusts out his tongue, 
draws in his face, opens wide his mouth, half 
shuts his eyes, — does all that ingenuity can do 
to veil his expression. But all in vain. The 
portrait can be made grotesque, but it cannot be 
made uncertain. 

The mind of man in passing from the savage 
to the philosopher — pausing at each of the many 
stages between — sees God as it sees Nature, 
through all manner of distortions. Nature to the 
savages discovered by Captain Cook, and God to 
the same crude and untutored intelligences, were 
vastly below the same Nature or the same God as 
beheld by Bacon, Newton, and Fenelon. They 
saw through a glass darkly ; these saw with exalted 
vision almost face to face. Crude religion, crude 
theology, crude science, crude philosophy, are 
such not because of imperfections or contradic- 
tions in the real objects of belief, but because of 



32 God and the Bible. 

differences and crudenesses in the intelligences 
that see, measure, interpret, believe. 

As in a deranged portrait certain features 
of identity defy the malice of the distorting 
medium, so in Nature certain palpable facts ever 
appear the same alike to savage and scientist ; 
and so in Him we call God are a few features 
apprehended as facts, and apprehended alike, 
whether in other regards the object be a god in 
stone, or a god suggested- by a stone, or a god 
symbolized by graven images, or a Jehovah or 
God and Father of all. But when we pass from 
primitive facts, whether in Nature or in God, 
to interpretations thereof, we come to the limita- 
tions and conditions incident to the reason, 
small or great, crude or disciplined, which all 
thinking minds annex to, or infuse into, the 
object of apprehension or belief. That is to say, 
we all, whether consciously or unwittingly, 
make a practical distinction between the Truth 
as it is in itself — always the same — and the 
intellectual or unintellectual processes of appre- 
hending, interpreting, defining, labelling that 
Truth, — processes as variable and as progressive 
as the human understanding itself. 

The next question in order is : " What do we 
mean by ' Our Father in heaven ' ? " 



IV. 



WHAT DO WE MEAN BY THE WORDS, 
"OUR FATHER IN HEAVEN"? 

nPO affirm that a thing is, and yet to add that 
-*■ it is nowhere, would seem to be a dethrone- 
ment of the reason of the one who makes the 
allegation, and to ask a similar suppression of 
intelligence on the part of those to whom the 
statement is made. None the less, some partic- 
ulars are often involved that pertain to the 
realm of mystery. We have given our reason 
for affirming that there is a God. Does this 
affirmation require that we locate Him ? Certain 
it is that no enlightened Theist will make the 
attempt. He will at once aver, " That cannot 
be done." We repeat his declaration : " That 
cannot be done." 

Does the unbeliever retort : " Then you sur- 
render your case"? Do we? Will he submit 
to the same test? He has no doubt that the 
force which scientists call gravity, which, holding 

the planets in their respective places, swings 

3 



34 Grod and the Bible. 

them all around the sun, is a veritable some- 
thing. Will he kindly tell us where it is ? Can 
a veritable substance pass through granite and 
marble ? track its way through a vacuum ? be 
everywhere in general and nowhere in partic- 
ular ? fill all space and yet remove nothing from 
its particular place in space ? In physics it is 
an axiom — it is this for its contrary cannot be 
thought — that no two things can occupy the 
same point in space. Either crowds itself in 
only as it crowds the other out. Two things 
may exist side by side, but that each can, on the 
same instant, fill the space filled by the other, is 
inconceivable. Yet the scientific world is agreed 
that the something which they call gravity is in 
every part of space, — not " side by side," but in 
mutual occupancy of the place ! 

The truth seems to be that the Materialist's 
conception of the physical world as well as the 
Theist's conception of God implies realities past 
finding out, past comprehension. We all ac- 
cept the statement of the text-books in regard 
to the particulars of physical science. Yet it is 
true that were the author of any one of these text- 
books to be " driven to a corner " by as sharp and 
relentless cross-questioning as that with which 



"Our Father in Heaven." 35 

not a few flippantly and with overweening confi- 
dence pursue the Theist, he would at once be 
driven to the covert of the mysterious. He would 
at the second question be compelled to exclaim : 
" There are things in even the physical world 
past finding out; yet we know that they are!" 
The Theist is not a whit more exacting when he 
exclaims: "There are things pertaining to God — 
particulars as to His mode and place of being — 
past finding out ; yet we know that He is ! " 

Well do we recall what in the years long ago 
fell upon our boy ears. Two men sitting upon 
a bench by the shore of the Penobscot were en- 
gaged in a discussion. One of the two prided 
himself in taking the name of an Atheist, while 
the other was not less vehement in defending 
the doctrine of " one living and true God." Said 
the unbeliever to the other : u Just tell me where 
your God came from, and how old he is, and I 
will believe as you do." The retort was: "Just 
tell me where matter came from, and how old it 
is, and I will believe as you do!" Too im- 
mature to apprehend in all its bearings the re- 
condite theme, the expression on the face of the 
self-avowed Atheist, and his profound silence, 
gave us at least this impression : A fool may ask 



36 Grod and the Bible. 

questions which the wisest cannot answer, and 
for the reason that they may pertain to things 
beyond the reach of our faculties. We take no 
risk in pledging to the Atheist that for every 
difficulty with which he may perplex us we will 
match its equal as against his own affirmations. 

Is it complained that while we have got well 
along in our essay we have as yet not touched 
the question : " What do we mean by the words, 
' Our Father in heaven ' ? " We think we have 
made considerable progress in framing an answer 
to that question. We certainly have, provided 
we have had success in winning conviction to 
what our words all along imply, — that when 
terms of time and space are applied to spiritual 
things they must be understood as figures of 
speech. Linguists tell us that the first meaning 
of every word was physical, and that it is always 
in an accommodated sense when they are applied 
to things of mind, conscience, sympathy, — to 
God and His realm. Not long ago we read of a 
woman, who had met with a great bereavement, 
that "she was sunk in deepest distress." In 
literal fact, was she ? In literal fact the state- 
ment asserts an impossibility ! A person may 
be sunk in the ocean of in a river ; for water is 



"Our Father in Heaven" 37 

a thing external to man. But Hamlet's " sea of 
troubles" is poetry. The distress was in the 
woman ; not she in it. And even this statement 
is half metaphorical, for distress is not an entity, 
a thing by itself ; it is a mental condition. Ex- 
treme literalness would say, " The woman is 
greatly distressed." But no one complains of 
the phraseology, " She was sunk in deepest dis- 
tress," for we instantly recognize the figurative 
quality of the statement, and involuntarily trans- 
late it into its exact purport. If God is a spirit 
— if in His essence He excludes corporeality, 
and all the conditions of time and space — He 
cannot in a literal sense be here, there, or else- 
where in space. If that be so, can we with pro- 
priety, without misleading, without deception, 
speak of "Our Father in heaven"? Certainly 
we can, just the same as, without misleading, 
without deceiving, we can say of the sorrowing 
woman, " She is in distress." As forms of lan- 
guage the two statements are identical ; that is, 
both are figures of speech. We should add, 
figures of speech made indispensable because of 
the limitations and imperfections of language. 

There are two worlds. There is the world of 
time and sense, of physical being, of the joys 



38 Grod and the Bible. 

and hopes and emoluments of a material con- 
dition. And there is the world of ideas, of con- 
victions, of love, of virtue, of spiritual joy. JVe 
have got accustomed to making this distinction : 
the earthly world, and the heavenly world. Re- 
pentance, peace, and joy pertain to the kingdom 
of heaven. By pre-eminence it is God's world, 
for the reason that His is an estate of moral and 
spiritual perfection. " Our Father in heaven " 
is a Biblical phrase, and for this reason it has 
got into all Christian literature. As we are 
here simply justifying our use of the phraseology 

— simply denoting what we mean by it — we 
may, "for the argument's sake," assume the 
reality of God and of His divine attributes. Or, 
if this is not satisfactory, we may put our propo- 
sition hypothetically : If there is a God, if His 
nature is love, if He has life and being in 
spiritual and moral excellences, — that is, in 
heavenliness as opposed to earthliness, — we can 
frame no better " figure of speech " wherewith 
to convey the comprehensiveness of the thought 
than the Biblical one : " Our Father who art in 
heaven." 

Next in order we will consider the topic : The 
significance of the Bible as the " Word of God " 

— what makes the Bible God's Word. 



THE BIBLE AS THE " WORD OP GOD." 

THE significance of the Bible as the " Word 
of God " — what makes the Bible God's 
Word — calls for a positive answer ; yet in large 
degree it can be best explained by statements of 
what the Bible is not. We who somewhat repre- 
sent the Protestants of the Protestants, yet con- 
vinced that the Bible contains a revelation from 
God, must at the outset complain that a certain 
and large class of nominal Bible men have given 
the principal occasion of distrust in claiming for 
the Bible a character at which reason revolts ; 
a character which the Bible nowhere claims for 
itself. Voltaire fought against the Catholic 
notion of the Bible, as Colonel Ingersoll fights, 
in most particulars, what is called the Reforma- 
tion theory, — the notion which a generation or 
two ago was dominant in all so-called " Evangel- 
ical" circles. Could we induce all sceptics to 
throw off all the accretions which theologians 
have fastened to the Bible, and go to its own 



40 Grod and the Bible. 

pages for statements of what it pretends to be, 
their scepticism might indeed remain, but it 
would be the Alps reduced to a hill of very mod- 
erate proportions. As Voltaire appears to us in 
the summaries given by his accomplished critic, 
John Morley, it is surprising to note how little 
there is that even an Old School Calvinist can 
object to. As we read Thomas Paine and Col- 
onel Ingersoll the particulars are many with 
which a disciple of even the New Orthodoxy 
would find himself in accord, — albeit he would 
be moved to state the particulars in terms more 
reverent and discriminating. For no other book 
does the " man of straw " so often and so relent- 
lessly appear as a substitute. 

The Bible is not the Word of God in the sense 
that its words are of His dictation ; we do not 
say immediate inditing; for no mature mind ever 
pretended to believe that God wrote anything in 
any way like that by which we produce the 
words of this article, — though, indeed, the 
preachers whom we heard in our childhood often 
gave us such an impression. The teaching of 
the Roman Catholic Church was from the first, 
and yet is, that by miraculous interventions God 
indicated to each of the Bible-writers the exact 



The Bible as the "Word of God." 41 

words they were instructed to record. God 
spoke the words ; the servants of His will put 
them upon parchment. The Bible is His words 
in a direct and mechanical sense, the same as 
the words of a last will and testament are those 
of the testator. Consistently with this notion, 
the Catholics have uniformly and rigidly insisted 
that by miraculous endowment God intrusted to 
His Church — of course the Church of cardinals 
and bishops and-priests — the care of His Word, 
whereby it is guarded against the invasion of 
any non-Biblical ingredient, and so remains 
to-day exactly what it was when it came from 
the hands of the first scribes or human re- 
corders. The whole Protestant world rejects, 
and with a feeling of contempt, the whole claim 
of infallible Catholic guardianship. But until a 
period quite recent all Protestants, with the 
exception of Unitarians and Universalists, and 
possibly Swedenborgians — should we add Qua- 
kers ? — accepted that part of the Catholic 
notion which we have called God's miraculous 
dictation, technically called Verbal Inspiration. 
We are alert to say that the Bible is not God's 
Word in either of the two senses which are here 
defined as primitively Catholic. 



42 God and the Bible. 

In his " Representative Men," Emerson begins 
his essay on Goethe by saying : " I find a pro- 
vision in the constitution of the world for the 
writer or secretary who is to report the doings 
of the miraculous spirit of life that everywhere 
throbs and works. His office is a reception of 
the facts into the mind, and then a selection of 
the eminent and characteristic experiences." 
The Concord Sage, always in revolt against the 
mechanical and the perfunctory, was led by his 
insight into the essentials of nature to see that 
the " secretary " is naturally selected ; he is as 
truly part and parcel of the natural order as are 
the passions and the instincts. We half doubt 
if that great thinker himself at the time meas- 
ured the full profundity of his utterance. In all 
of the many years which have elapsed since we 
first read the passage quoted, it has lived in our 
memory, and we never recur to it without a 
deepened sense of its wisdom. The late Edward 
Everett, in one of those word-pictures for which 
he was noted, said of geology that it is the 
" earth's autobiography." The very crust of the 
globe, so far as human wisdom has explored 
it, is seen to be a parchment whereupon He 
or It who or which gave it form and laws has 



The Bible as the " Word of God." 43 

sketched the epochs of its unfolding. If we 
come upon an age in which no' " secretary " has 
writ down its doings, we deplore the crudeness 
of intellect which was too feeble to carry out the 
behests of the natural instinct. The writer is, 
then, no arbitrary invention. It is in the poet's 
heart to sing : but not less to write the song for 
the perusal of his fellows. 

The application is, we presume, obvious. If 
God is Father, if He loves His offspring, if 
He has in regard to them a beneficent purpose, 
all the analogies of nature assure us that the 
" secretaries " have been qualified to record His 
ways and will. A Bible is as truly " part and 
parcel of nature as the passions and the in- 
stincts." So far, at least, such is what we mean 
by the Bible as the Word of God. We say " so 
far at least ; " but we go further. 

It may be retorted that our statement simply 
puts the Biblical writers in the same category 
with historians, poets, essayists ; that we classify 
Isaiah, the Psalmists, the Evangelists, and Apos- 
tles with Plato, Seneca, and Bacon. To this we 
reply, " One thing at a time." We concede that 
the form of recording — the putting into records 
for the general benefit — is the same with Paul 



44 Grod and the Bible. 

as with Seneca. We are not bound to any 
theory which compels us to assign to an apostle 
a substitute for his natural brain, or for his 
natural emotions, or for the hand which writes, 
or the paper or parchment or tablet upon which 
the " reading matter " is impressed. As far as 
we have now got we have no occasion for any- 
thing special in the work of the secretary. 
What we aim to assert and make clear is the 
truth that the writer is provided for in "the 
constitution of the world." We wish to have it 
appear that the notion of the Bible as something 
out of, apart from, "the natural order," is a 
mistake. The generic secretary — whether per- 
sonal as in Plato or impersonal as in the " earth's 
autobiography " — is not a strange thing forced 
into the " constitution of the world," or arbi- 
trarily placed upon it. The secretary is as 
truly and essentially a natural institution as 
government or society. 

But we go a very important step further. 
There is a reason — good or ill — why the Bible 
is called " the " Book ; why it has a peculiar 
place upon the pulpit of every church ; why its 
devotees particularly defend it; yes, why its 
enemies particularly assail it. Such papers as 



The Bible as the " Word of God." 45 

the " Boston Investigator," — which, in having 
the full courage of its position, merits gratitude 
as well as praise — make no particular attack 
upon Plato's Republic, or Bacon's Organon ; raise 
no question as to the veracity of the documents 
or the legitimacy of authorships. By friend and 
foe alike a peculiarity is attributed to the Bible : 
its enemies think the peculiarity damaging ; its 
friends think it a rock of sure support. 

The peculiarity is primarily in the subject- 
matter of the Bible ; and secondarily in certain 
very marked accompaniments of the recording 
thereof Now we have a theme for octavos ! 
We are restricted to a condensation of condensa- 
tions. And we are describing what we mean by 
the Bible as God's Word, — happy however in the 
assurance that we fairly represent not a small 
proportion of the Christian world as it is in the 
closing quarter of the nineteenth century. The 
subject-matter of the Bible has an environment 
of history, of biography, of poetry, of fiction, — 
not however in the sense of fiction either in- 
tended to deceive or liable to deceive ; allegory 
and parable are of course fiction, legitimate 
fiction, yet fiction, — in a phrase, of all the 
earthly or human accompaniments of literature. 



46 God and the Bible. 

That is to say, the subject-matter of the Bible 
is in a literary casket the particulars whereof 
reflect the wisdom, the manners, the notions, the 
limitations of the particular age and people. 
But the subject-matter of the Bible is religion. 

But while this is the particularity of the 
Bible, it is not its peculiarity, for religion is the 
possession of all people ; at no time has God left 
his children without some witness of His pres- 
ence and care. " To this extent " we simply 
note what the Apostle Paul " meant by the Bible 
as God's Word." In the Bible, however, we 
have yet another quality, and this is its dis- 
tinction. It is God's revelation of Himself, in a 
progressive unfolding, — crudely to the crude; 
more clearly to the better informed; in His 
fulness to Jesus Christ, intelligible to all true 
disciples of Jesus Christ, — to each in his order, 
proportioned to the measure of his spiritual 
ability. If in this we hold a tenable position, 
we feel assured that it is a true and reasonable 
sense of the words that the Bible is God's 
Word. 

But the " secretaries " were men. What of 
them ? Who wrote the Bible ? This is our next 
topic. 



VI. 

HOW THE BIBLE CAME FROM GOD. 

THE question " How the Bible came from 
God " involves the question, Who were its 
"secretaries"? To this point we now call at- 
tention. 

Were we to substitute in the place of the 
Bible some other ancient book, — were we called 
upon to answer the question, Who wrote the 
" Republic " or the other Socratic Dialogues ? or, 
Who wrote the "Logic," which is the basis of 
all later treatises on the same subject ? or, Who 
wrote the " History of the Peloponnesian War " ? 
or, Who wrote or spoke the " Oration on the 
Crown " ? or, Who wrote the most ancient sketch 
of the German barbarians? — in every case our 
answer would be, We do not knotv ! Yet again, 
and coming down later in the chronologv, 
suppose the question to be, Who wrote "The 
Organon," or the u History of Charles the Fifth," 
or " The Leviathan," or " The Decline and Fall 



48 Grod and the Bible. 

of the Roman Empire"? — still our answer 
would be, We do not know! All these ques- 
tions pertain to the past, and all are in the 
category of the Historical; and in regard to 
history the only possible mental attitude is 
Belief. We cannot walk by sight in reference 
to things no longer to be seen. In regard to 
every historical allegation we can walk only by 
faith. 

Belief, however, is often as satisfactory as the 
information brought directly to our apprehen- 
sion. We have no manuscript of Plato ante- 
dating one of the tenth century, — the copy of a 
copy, and this of pre-existing copies, we know not 
of what chronological character. And in all, 
the translators have made occasional mistakes. 
There are discrepancies. Yet criticism is not at 
all sceptical. We do not learn that the author- 
ship of the " Socratic Dialogues " was ever sus- 
pected to be other than that of Plato. No Grote 
or Niebuhr suggests that the " Phillipics " came 
from any orator except Demosthenes. That 
Thucydides wrote the " History of the Pelopon- 
nesian War ".is regarded as matter of course. 
To Tacitus all attribute our first knowledge of 
the German tribes as thdy were before Roman 



How the Bible came from God. 49 

culture so much as touched them. In regard to 
later literature it would seem ridiculous to ques- 
tion the name of Gibbon as the author of the 
imperial history which goes in his name. Some 
strange fancies link the name of Francis Bacon 
with the plays of Shakspeare, but no other 
name than Bacon's is honored in connection 
with " The Organon " — the tap-root of nearly all 
the current sciences. John Locke is as con- 
fidently set down as the thinker from whose 
tough brain came the " Treatise on the Human 
Understanding " as if one of his contemporaries 
were to rise from the dead and give us the testi- 
mony of one who saw and heard. 

Now comes the crucial question : Why this 
unhesitating confidence in regard to the author- 
ship of the ancient and modern classics ? In 
regard thereto no one knows, or can know, in 
any such sense as he knows the mathematical 
axioms, or the things that pass before his direct 
vision. At the best the attitude is one of belief. 
But the belief is as good as knowledge. And 
why ? Many answers might be given to this 
question. We attempt but three : — 

1. It is always the presumption that a writing 

belongs to the person whose name comes with it. 

4 



50 God and the Bible. 

Note, we say " the presumption." This means 
that, in lack of testimony to the contrary, the 
accuracy of the historic inheritance is to be 
received. In regard to not a few of the ancient 
writings the " contrary testimony " is strong 
enough to shake the force of traditions or of 
proofs nominally historic. For more than the 
years of a generation the authorship of the Iliad 
has been a mooted question. Contrary testi- 
mony has eliminated passages from Josephus. 
The same criticism has, in some passages, made 
bad work of Livy. But Plato, Demosthenes, 
Thucydides, Tacitus, Bacon, Gibbon, Locke, and 
a host of others, ancient and modern, have 
had to confront no " contrary proofs." Their 
names came with the documents. This gives 
the presumption that is sufficient when unchal- 
lenged. 

2. Contemporary testimony adds greatly to 
the weight of the presumption. If we find in 
the ancient writers mention of contemporary 
and anterior authors — particularly if such 
mention often recurs — the coincidence is so 
obviously real that it carries conviction, save in 
cases where some prejudice or pride of opinion 
has been arrayed against it. 



How the Bible came from God. 51 

3. Identity of style — as marked and unmis- 
takable as identity in chirography — is very con- 
firmatory. If the same name is connected with 
different works, it is obvious that while the same 
style appears running through them all, it is 
difficult to doubt that the name is genuine. No 
one could be made to believe that Tacitus wrote 
the books attributed to Livy, or that Livy wrote 
the books that go in the name of the u History 
of the German Barbarians." What makes the 
Baconian authorship of Shakspeare's plays seem 
preposterous to not a few is the fact that certain 
poetical lines known to be the work of Bacon are 
as unlike the lines of Hamlet and Macbeth as 
the average u spring poetry " differs from Tenny- 
son and Longfellow. 

More than any other book the Bible has been 
subjected to these crucial tests in estimating the 
process of authorship. The presumption is that 
Moses wrote the Pentateuch, David the Psalms, 
and Isaiah all that goes in that prophet's name, 
John the Fourth Gospel and the Epistles ascribed 
to him, Paul the Letter to the Hebrews, Peter 
the Second Epistle, and Jude the letter that 
bears his name. But the three criteria just 
elucidated have made somewhat doubtful the 



52 God and the Bible. 

Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, and cer- 
tainly have greatly reduced the amount of his 
possible authorship ; have greatly shrivelled the 
proportion of Davidic Psalms ; have put the 
authorship of the Fourth Gospel into a prolonged 
controversy ; have cast great doubt on the 
origin of Hebrews, Second Peter, the third 
Epistle attributed to John, Jude, and a few other 
New Testament documents. But the substantial 
authenticity of the Synoptics as the work of 
Mark, Matthew, and Luke, and of the Book of 
Acts, is well sustained ; and no intelligent critic 
at this date disputes the claim of the two Epistles 
to the Corinthians, the Romans, and the Gala- 
tians as of Pauline authorship. As a generalized 
statement, the rule is that the Biblical books 
accurately tell the history of their authorship, 
but to this rule there are some unquestioned ex- 
ceptions, and yet more that are problematical. 

The related question, What does it matter 
who wrote the books of the Bible? suggests the 
topic for the concluding statement. 



VII. 

WHAT DOES IT MATTER WHO WROTE 
THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE? 

OUR answer to this question depends mainly, 
perhaps wholly, upon our view of the na- 
ture and purpose of the Bible. On the old and 
well-nigh effete notion of Verbal Inspiration, we 
fail to see that the personality of the writers 
has any importance whatever. If prophets and 
apostles were mere amanuenses, who can be 
profited by knowing the names of the human 
machines ? When a manufacturer in Phila- 
delphia receives a letter from a Boston dealer 
calling for certain of his goods, what concern 
has he in the name, character, or residence of 
the type-writer who wrote what his employer dic- 
tated ? But of course every letter that has a 
quality affected by the personality of the pen- 
man, makes it essential that his name and 
reputation be known. When a man signs his 
name to a note, or puts it on the back thereof 



54 God and the Bible. 

as endorsement, the question who and what he 
is has a supreme importance. We may here 
suppose extreme cases, but we aim to make our 
meaning clear. It may be a debatable question 
whether any part of the matter of Scripture has 
its value affected by the character of the writer ; 
in fact this is the point we now propose to con- 
sider : but on the supposition that the Book to 
any extent conditions its utility on the quality 
of the human scribe, it is not so much an in- 
ference as a constituent of the statement that, 
to an equal extent, it matters very much who 
wrote the Book — what the character and quali- 
fications. 

At the outset we wish, in explicit terms, to make 
the concession, that had we been called upon 
to write upon our present specific topic thirty 
years ago, we should certainly have attached a 
much greater degree of importance to the per- 
sonality of each Biblical writer than we attach 
thereto under the better information of the pres- 
ent time. The past generation of " Apologists," 

— as defenders of the Scriptures are often called, 

— greatly emphasized what they called the ex- 
ternal evidences. They made the Bible depend 
mainly — we do not say wholly — on spoken or 



What does it matter who wrote the Bible ? 55 

verbal testimony. Every one of its writers was 
supposed to be very much in the plight of a wit- 
ness in a civil court, who first of all must be put 
under oath, with pains and penalties in the back- 
ground, to " tell the truth, the whole truth, and 
nothing but the truth," and he must at the 
beginning of his testimony give his name, resi- 
dence, occupation, and state of mind in regard 
to the merits of the question at issue. The 
apologists of the present day place the main 
dependence upon what is called the internal tes- 
timony, — the moral evidence, the correlation 
which Biblical teachings meet with in the indi- 
vidual, moral, and spiritual intuitions of human 
nature : that is, they have discovered that the 
Biblical essentials are of a character to be largely 
self-evidencing when once intelligently appre- 
hended, to a degree which our early divines 
never suspected. To-day we do indeed say, as a 
generation earlier we should have said : It does 
matter who wrote the Bible. We now say it 
matters in a few particulars : then we should 
have said, it matters in very many particulars. 
We frankly but firmly remind our conservative 
brethren, that they must cheerfully and with 
alacrity join with us in what we here concede^ 



56 God and the Bible. 

else they will find themselves bereft and justly 
bereft of influence with the new generation of 
readers. 

1. To a large degree the Bible deals with 
principles — certain primitive facts in reference 
to the soul's hunger and needs. It deals with 
these in two senses : it explains what they are 
and it applies them to human conduct. The 
Sermon on the Mount is almost wholly occupied 
with this primitive matter. We should make 
the same estimate of the bulk of the Fourth 
Gospel : if our judgment is right in this par- 
ticular it follows that its authorship is a matter 
of secondary importance ; we certainly think 
that it is. We should say the same of most of 
the two Epistles to the Corinthians. The second 
chapter of the First itself affirms and elucidates 
what we now insist upon. So far as regard is 
had to the spiritual things that are spiritually 
discerned, the facts come at first hand, and cor- 
roboration is needless. The subject-matter of 
Second Peter is, we hold, self -vindicating : the 
circumstance that we know not who was its 
author is of little essential importance. We are 
naming samples of what is a staple in the Book 
as a whole. 



What does it matter who wrote the Bible ? 57 

2. It is sometimes alleged that the Bible 
makes its appeal directly to our intuitions, waiv- 
ing the whole matter of argumentative processes. 
As the pure in heart see God, it answers every 
need to affirm that He is : argument in support 
of the affirmation is supererogation. The alle- 
gation, however, must concede many exceptions. 
Not a little of the teachings of Jesus convey to 
the mind of the reader not by simple affirmation, 
but through a logical process, and more fre- 
quently by striking analogies. The appeal to 
the " signs of the times " is a notable instance. 
Nearly all of the Epistle to the Romans is an 
argument, — is syllogistic to a remarkable and 
exacting degree, particularly in the fifth and 
eleventh chapters. The same holds strongly of 
the fifteenth of First Corinthians. Paul in a 
notable passage in this epistle says : " I speak 
as unto wise men ; judge ye what I say." 

Our point here is that when a Biblical writer 
impliedly calls upon us to reason, and certainly 
when he directly exhorts us to do so, he does 
not ask us to give direct assent to his state- 
ments. When a father says to his son of ten 
years : " This is right," he expects the boy to 
assent on the instant. If, however, he gives not 



58 God and the Bible. 

the simple affirmation but on the contrary rea- 
sons why a certain thing is right, his require- 
ment is that the boy shall first weigh the reasons 
and afterwards give his assent. Hence all that 
part of the Bible that can be called logical, — as 
most of Romans is, toughly logical,— is presumed 
to rest with the logical faculty of the reader: 
and hence the question, Who made the particu- 
lar logic ? is simply a matter of biographical curi- 
osity ; it is not an essential. We must keep on 
good terms with those who read us with, eyes 
rigidly critical, by adding that we make this state- 
ment with exclusive reference to the reasoning 
processes ; not at all to the data upon which the 
processes are based : it may be most important 
that we know who gives us the premises of the 
argument, however little may depend on his char- 
acter in determining the accuracy of the conclu- 
sions drawn therefrom. 

3. Of course, all that is historical in the Bible 
depends very much upon the question who and 
what was the historian. Before the discovery 
of the meaning of the Egyptian and Babylonian 
alphabets, very much of ancient history depended 
upon the personality of Herodotus. Nine words 
were devoted to him where one was devoted to 



What does it matter icho wrote the Bible ? 59 

the facts which he attested. A statement found 
in Mitford's Greece weighs nothing if a contrary 
statement is found in Grote. Much as we may 
admire the stvle of Bancroft we have much more 
confidence in the paragraphs of Hildreth. In 
Roman history a prime factor is the character 
and judicial temper of Tacitus. Of recent his- 
tory, how have we discovered what a difference 
it makes whether the story of a battle is told by 
a Confederate or a Unionist! The application 
to Biblical historians is obvious. 

4. The position was long maintained almost 
exclusively by Unitarians and Universalists, that 
every Biblical writer has a style strictly peculiar 
to himself, and that his personal peculiarities 
are in his rhetoric. This position has now won 
general assent, and it includes the fact that 
much often depends upon the question who is 
the particular writer. No one applies to the 
Fourth Gospel the same principle of interpre- 
tation that he applies to that by Mark. No one 
reads the book of Revelation as he reads the 
book of Acts. A strong reason for doubting 
that Paul wrote the Epistle to the Hebrews is in 
noting that the style is not Pauline. 

5. We close this essay, and with it the series 



60 God and the Bible. 

of which it is one, with the baldest statement 
of the dominant fact in the question of Biblical 
authorship. It is now the common attitude of 
the bulk of the Protestant world that Christian- 
ity is " Christocentric " ; by which technicality 
is meant that all that is distinctive in the New 
Testament rests in the Person of Jesus. His 
own words assert and explain : " I am the Way, 
the Truth, and the Life." What a fruitful 
theme ; how voluminous the details ! The bear- 
ing of this doctrine, obvious on the simplest 
statement, has a startling significance should 
we raise the question of his sincerity and integ- 
rity ! Why, while much depends upon what 
Jesus said, a hundred-fold more depends upon 
what he was. Who could think of urging the 
question, " What does it matter who or what 
Jesus was ? " Yet again, the tone and bearing 
of prophets and apostles signify more than their 
verbal utterances. The righteous indignation, 
fearless fidelity of Isaiah, Jeremiah, Peter, and 
Paul, are of greater importance than the simple 
events they predict or narrate ; and so of course 
we need to know " who and what " they were. 
Personality is a leading factor in the Bible. In 
vital regards it matters much who were the per- 



What does it matter who wrote the Bible ? 61 

sons through and by whom its truths have been 
revealed. 

In the series of essays which we now close we 
need not be told that where one thing has been 
noted the ninety and nine have no mention what- 
ever. We have been led in nearly all the points 
by the questions presented by the " Boston Inves- 
tigator," as explained in the introductory essay. 
We have had in mind what seemed to us the 
needs of the sceptical rather than the believing 
mind. We have certainly treated fundamental 
matters. If we have made the vast subject 
clearer and more winning to any of our readers, 
if we have contributed anything to create or 
strengthen faith and trust in matters which we 
are accustomed to regard as divine in their 
nature and of vast practicality to all who seek 
the true way of life as well as of belief, we have 
reason to be grateful for the opportunity and 
incentive that have led to the series of articles 
of which we now write the last word. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: August 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township. PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




244 441 



Wmm ■ 




